1: BURN AWAY YOUR TROUBLES

"Beside Me," by Code Kunst (feat. BewhY, YDG, and Suran)

                In that moment, everyone’s eyes fell on Ji Naeil, the last person who wanted anyone’s attention. She sat in the back of the classroom, trying to ignore what her homeroom teacher had just said about “students who never pay for things like school uniforms on time.” It was getting harder to ignore her as she went on.

                The next page of Naeil’s book was blank. She took a pencil and put it to the paper, sketching the beginnings of a face.

                “In fact,” her teacher’s sharp tone rang out, “Some students are shameless enough to disregard their teachers while they’re speaking in class. Those sort of students have no dignity.”

                The face on her page had huge eyes, so Naeil could draw all the emotions in them. She added flowing hair, long lashes, and a body that was light as air.

                “Students like those are already on their way to failure. But why should we be surprised?”

                Naeil drew clouds around the girl’s form, a sun peaking just behind it, birds flying by.

                “I suppose we can’t blame them when they have drunkards for parents.”

                Naeil’s pencil stopped. She sighed and looked away to her left, out of the classroom windows opened up to the sky. Spring was here, and the sky was bright, empty, and blue.

                What is it like? To be a part of that sky?

                The teacher was still talking, but Naeil had stopped hearing the words coming out of . If she stayed for a moment longer, she might do something really stupid. So Naeil pushed her chair back, packed her backpack stiffly, stood up, and walked toward the classroom door without a word or glance.             The teacher grabbed Naeil’s backpack strap and yanked her back inside before she could successfully escape.

                “Where do you think you’re going?” her teacher demanded, swinging a piece of paper in her face. “Shameless! Are you going to ignore me just like you ignore this?”

                Naeil sighed, clenching her jaw just before snatching the bill from her teacher. Without so much as a grunt in response to her teacher’s screaming protests, Naeil turned around again and walked out the door.

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                The curb outside of the high school was pretty quiet during class hours. There was only one person there. A boy, earbuds in, hands on his bowed head, absorbed in the thoughts and sounds flowing through his mind.

                School doors behind him, streets of Seoul before him: two ways to go, neither option looking any more promising than the other. School had never been a safe place for him, but the rest of Seoul wasn’t either, and it was bigger. It just got deeper and deeper the more he delved into its alleyways.

                There was a backpack to his right, a small, brown package sitting atop it. It was opened. It shouldn’t have been opened, but it was. He picked it up and flipped it around in his hands, too sad to look inside again.

                “What the hell do I do with this?” he sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Aish, you got yourself into a big mess this time, Min Yoongi.” Finally the package went back into his backpack. He zipped it up soundly. “Who am I kidding? I signed up for this a long time ago.”

                Just as he was placing a hand on the curb to push himself up, Yoongi felt a sharp poke at his back. It barely pricked the skin beneath his t-shirt, and his eyes fell closed as he braced himself.

                “You sneaky bastard,” said a voice behind him. “Let’s see what you got there, hm?”

                The knife jabbed at his back again.

                Yoongi cursed.

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                Naeil stormed down the empty hallways, muttering abuse under her breath, avoiding classroom windows, and looking down at the ground. She refused to cry.

                The girls’ bathroom door slammed open when Naeil entered. She stood there for a moment, shoulders heaving, before she ran up to the tile wall and gave it a good roundhouse kick. It almost made her fall, but that didn’t stop her from punching it too. That, however, sent shots of pain up her nerves, and she immediately winced and pulled away.

                Water from the faucet did little to cool her burning red face. She leaned her forehead against the mirror to give herself a good stare-down.

                It was surprising, maybe even a little frightening, to meet the eyes that stared back at her. They were wide and frantic—almost crazy. What was even more frightening was knowing all the things she tried to hide behind them.

                With a gasp of air, Naeil let her forehead slide down the mirror, all the way to the counter, where she faceplanted. It smelt of chlorine and old hair product.

                “Idiot teacher...piece of…trash…I just…I just…I…”

                Her breathing was loud in her own ears.

                “…God help me.” she whispered.

                Naeil pulled herself up from the sink. In the privacy of a locked corner stall, atop the seat of that old toilet, she ped her backpack, pulled out her headphones, the music, and just listened.

                The music flowed into her ears, heavy beat thrumming with her heart.

                And finally, the tears poured down.

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                Students flew to windows at the sound of shouts echoing down the school hallways. They caught sight of Min Yoongi flying by, a pack of iljin hot at his heels. [Iljin=essentially high school gangsters, sometimes involved in acts of violence or extreme obscenity]. Yoongi pushed himself to run faster, hoping, somehow, that a teacher might step out and intervene. He knew they wouldn’t. All the teachers were just as scared of the iljin as the rest of the students.

                He thanked heaven—or God, or something—that he had been born fast. The other boys weren’t gaining on him, but they weren’t giving up either. He flew past room after room, desperately looking for a place to hide. All the classrooms were full.

                Around the next bend, he paused at the girls’ bathroom door, trying to weigh the pros and cons of walking through that entrance. He could hear shouts and pounding footsteps in the distance. And the package lying in his backpack—well, he could almost swear it was weighing heavier and heavier the farther he ran with it. It had to be destroyed. With a scowl and sniff of disgust, he pushed open the door and walked inside.

                The door slammed shut and Yoongi tossed the package into the sink, taking out a lighter and flipping it open.

                Something made his hand pause over the bathroom sink.

                Someone else was in the bathroom. And she was…humming? Yoongi wrinkled his nose, half with confusion, half with irritation. In the last stall of the bathroom, some girl was apparently just hanging out, quietly singing a song to herself. What the hell was she doing in there, hosting her own concert?

                Outside the bathroom, he could hear his pursuers stampede pass by the girls’ bathroom. They would be back soon. This was no time for patience.

                He lifted a fist and banged on the stall as obnoxiously as he could.

                “Yah—girl. Hurry up and get out of there.”

                The humming stopped, but he received no answer. He pounded once more.

                “I’m warning you. If you don’t want to smell smoke, you’d better get out of here quick.”

                Still there was no answer. Momentarily, the sounds of movement told Yoongi she was getting up. The lock slid undone, the door swung open, and a girl stepped forward, slipping off her headphones as she did.

                Brushing her tangled black hair out of her face with much frustration, the girl silently leaned an arm against the stall as she evaluated the boy who had just intruded upon her privacy. Dark, red-rimmed, angry eyes slowly glided up to meet his. The sight of them made Yoongi inch backward. She looked like she could kill him right now.

                “Yah?” she repeated, sniffing a little and wiping her nose aggressively. “Did you say something about…smoke?” Pushing away from the stall, she took a step toward Yoongi. “I swear, you punks will do anything for a smoke these days.” A small, stubborn finger stabbed at his chest. “Apparently even SNEAK INTO THE GIRLS’ BATHROOM LIKE A ERT!”

                “Eyeh…” muttered Yoongi, jumping back again. He turned his head and glanced at the package lying in the sink. “Look, um, you—I’m not trying to smoke, and I’m not a ert!”

                “Uh-huh, right, of course not.”

                “I just...you just need to get out of here, okay?! I don’t have time to explain this to you right now. If you’re smart, you’ll just leave, and keep your voice down while you do it.”

                “Why should I? What the heck are you even talking about?” She stood on tiptoe to peek over his shoulder. “What’s that thing in the sink?”

                “None of your business.”

                “Drugs?”

                “No.”

                “What is it, then?”

                “Something I need to get rid of.”

                Naeil stared at the package, eyes narrowing. “Hm…really?”

                “Yeah—”

                So quickly it made him blink in surprise, Naeil pushed past him and stalked over to the sink.

                “What are you—don’t—don’t touch that, you idiot!”

                Naeil dug around in her pockets for a while before procuring a wrinkled ball of paper. The bill from her teacher. She tossed it on top of the package.

                “I need to get rid of this too,” she said, looking back at Yoongi expectantly.

                He raised an eyebrow, slowly processing what she meant. Maybe it didn’t matter whether she stayed or left.

                With a shrug and a little smirk, he threw the lighter onto the pile. A sigh floated from Naeil’s lips as the flames caught on and bloomed. The breath she had lost came back to her, and she stood back to watch the growing bonfire next to Yoongi.

                There shouldn’t have been anything beautiful about that moment. Grimy walls, moist floors, and the stink of high school bathroom surrounded them, a cloud of smoke slowly growing and filling the air around them. Both were fully aware of the fact that they were hiding from their problems. There was nothing glorious in it. But those flames—lighting up their eyes, flickering just between their faces—those flames were burning away their secret troubles. Something about that made Naeil’s heart drum with delight.

                After a while of watching, Naeil grabbed a roll of toilet paper and began breaking off bits to toss into the fire. She offered some to Yoongi, and he joined.

                “You’re my sunbae, right?” asked Naeil. “Third year?” [sunbae=senior]

                “I think so. You’re a second year?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Excited for your last year?” [In Korea, there are three years of high school]

                “Nah.”

                The sound of footsteps reached their ears and Yoongi looked up. He sighed. “Time to go. You mind putting that out? Aish, it’s getting pretty big.”

                He was trying to pry open the window high up on the wall.

                “Your name is is…Ji Naeil, right?” he asked, grunting as he threw aside a piece of metal. [‘Naeil’ means ‘tomorrow’]

                “Yeah.”

                “Weird name.”

                “Everyone says that.”

                He shrugged. “My name’s Min Yoongi.”

                “I know.”

                “Oh. Okay. Since that’s out of the way, I’d better get going.” He turned around once more and grinned a little. “I might not see you the next tomorrow, but who knows? Tomorrows aren’t what I thought they were.”

                With that, Yoongi clambered up the wall and managed to push himself through that tiny space. After a moment’s hesitation, Naeil stood on tiptoe to peer out of the window. He was already gone.

                She wouldn’t see him again for a long time.

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                It was 3:00 A.M. and there weren’t many lights on, even in the rundown motel where Yoongi was staying. He sat on the edge of the bed, toying with the lighter in his hands, knowing that the idea he was toying with in his head was just as dangerous.

                It wasn’t like he had a lot of options right now.

                He pulled out the box that sat under his bed, opening its lid with something like dread. Faces stared back at him, each set of eyes as horrifyingly real as the next. He pulled the photos out and looked closer at them. It didn’t matter if their silent voices tortured them. He wanted to be tortured. The old receipts at the bottom of the box reminded him just how long this had been going on. It was time to stop.
                There was a can of gasoline hidden under his bed, too. There was only one reason he had bought it. Yoongi pulled it out, unscrewing the lid and letting the liquid fall over his bed, his floor, and the papers scattered chaotically about the room. He pulled a handgun out of the pillow where he hid it and stuffed it into the back of his pants. Hopefully he would never need it again, but that was doubtful.
                That moment he hesitated before throwing in the lighter was a long one. When it fell from his hand, the tiny flame immediately lapped up the liquid on the floor. The room sighed and exploded with light. Flames curled upward, reaching for the ceiling, consuming everything in the ugly old room.
                Yoongi found it difficult to move from the place where he stood. The warmth felt exhilarating. Watching those old photos and papers burn gave his heart a thrill that it hadn’t felt in ages. Maybe the fire could even consume those ugly memories of his. It would be so easy to just let it consume him, too. Maybe if it took him, all those sins would dispel with the smoke.

                He lifted his face and sighed.

                No. There were some things even fire couldn’t destroy.

Author’s Note

Anyone else ever cried in a school bathroom? This was written from experience, amigos.

Bet none of you have ever started a fire in a school bathroom before though, ha! (But I guess you never know now I’m totally expecting someone to prove me wrong).

On another note—(I am secretly more excited for this story than anyone else and I know that sounds lame but I really don’t care)

Thanks to all the rando people who already subscribed to this story, and to the familiar peeps who stuck around for me. This is gonna be a whoooooooole other boat ride

……but an awesome one…………….

………………..…at least I hope so………………